Category Archives: Financial Stress

There is a short answer to the question of how to save money fast, and you might not like hearing it, but if you will, stick with me for a few minutes because if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to manage on a non-existent budget, and you might find a tip or two that will work for you.

Money Saving and Budgeting Tips

Here comes your answer – at least the basic part. Cut your expenses, make a budget, and stick to that budget.

Now, here come some tips on how to do those things without feeling like you have to mess up your life and do something drastic.

How to Save Money Fast

Here comes your answer – at least the basic part. Cut your expenses, make a budget, and stick to that budget. Now here come some tips on how to do those things without feeling like you have to mess up your life and do something drastic.

Now here come some tips on how to do those things without feeling like you have to mess up your life and do something drastic.

Here comes your answer – at least the basic part. Cut your expenses, make a budget, and stick to that budget. Now here come some tips on how to do those things without feeling like you have to mess up your life and do something drastic.

Now here come some tips on how to do those things without feeling like you have to mess up your life and do something drastic.

Expense Cutting Ideas

I won’t kid you, cutting expenses can be really rough, but almost everyone has something they can dump if they really need to get some money together in a hurry.

Look for the things that aren’t necessary to life – anything that’s not food, shelter, or clothing could technically be cut, and even some types of clothing fall into the luxury category and could be cut.

These things are often the very things that make us feel like life is worthwhile, like cable TV and cigarettes for many folks, but if you need the money badly enough, you can let them go and still survive.

Basic Budgeting

If you’ve never made a budget before, get a book at the library to guide you, use free online budgeting software, or pick up a copy of my personal finance for women book – whether you are male or female – the budgeting part is the same and that’s covered in detail in my book.

Basically, a budget is YOUR plan to distribute your income over your bills.

Make sure to allocate a bit of freedom in your budget for the things you might forget to write down, because the things you forget will be the first thing to break your budget if you don’t leave some cash to cover them.

Figure out how much you need to save each week to meet your savings goal because you need that information in your budget if you want to succeed.

Sticking to Your Budget

Sticking to your budget can be really hard, too, especially if your family works against you by asking to eat out or asking for things you didn’t leave cash for in your budget.

If at all possible, get everyone in your household on board with your budget and savings plan, so you can meet or even exceed your goal and end up with the cash you need by when you need it.

Saving money fast is not the easiest thing you will ever do.

Up to a point, these tips can help, though it varies by how much you need to save in a hurry and how much surplus you can squeeze out of your income.

In a pinch, you can also sell some of your things you don’t need on an auction site, such as eBay or at a pawn shop to scrape together some extra cash to meet your savings goal.

Feel free to let me know if any of these tips work for you, or to share your own money-saving tips to help others who read here.

What is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP)?

A Certified Financial Planner, or CFP, is a financial professional who meets the requirements established by the CFP Board of Standards.

To become a Certified Financial Planner, the board requires the following:

A Bachelor’s degree, or higher

Complete a CFP Board-Registered Education Program.

Pass the CFP Certification Examination, a 10 hour exam

Have at least three years of work experience in personal financial planning

Pass a background check

Pay certification fees

Once they become a CFP, financial professionals are required to report Continuing Education requirements every other year, to insure they are keeping up with changes in the industry.

How does a CFP compare to other financial professionals?

There are many different types of financial professionals, and the “alphabet soup” of designations may be confusing.

Click here to buy this book!

CFPs are trained to develop comprehensive financial plans for individuals, businesses, and non-profit organizations. It is their responsibility to objectively assess your financial situation, troubleshoot problem areas, and recommend appropriate options. A good CFP should be confident in all areas of financial planning and the way various strategies can be used to create a comprehensive plan suited to your needs.

How do I pay for a CFP’s services?

There are two ways that CFPs can be compensated. First, they may take a commission from a product or service that they sell you. Second, they may ask that you pay a flat or hourly fee for their services. Some financial professionals use a hybrid of fees and commissions. Be sure to talk about this with your planner before agreeing to engage his or her services.

How do I choose a CFP to work with?

You will be working very closely with your financial planner on every aspect of your wealth management, so it’s important that you are completely confident with the CFP you choose to work with. – Talk to your friends and family to see what their experiences are, it’s a good place to get started.

– Feel free to do some internet searches on prospective planners – you should be able to tell a lot by a person’s, or firm’s, online presence.

– Don’t hesitate to check with the various regulatory boards to see if there has ever been a complaint lodged against the planner. You can check CFP.net, as well as Finra.org, and Sipc.org.

– Finally, give the CFP a call. If you set up a meeting, or even just start out with a long phone conversation, it will give you a good idea of whether this is the planner for you.

Amit Bhawani writes on different topics ranging from technology to Financial Planning and gives advices through different articles on choosing professional financial planners at financialplanners.com who can help you make better decisions with your money.

Women, don’t just sit back and let your men take the lead when it comes to your financial future – it just isn’t a smart thing to do – so make your own budget and money saving plan and begin managing your personal finances.

I’m not saying the man in your life isn’t smart, or great, or untrustworthy – I’m saying – if you choose to sit back idly and leave your financial future in your guy’s hands – what are you going to do if something happens to him?

Managing Personal Finances

What are you going to do if you end up in the majority – another statistic – another couple that ends up divorced?

What if he makes a bad choice and you end up blaming him?

At least if you do your research and make some or all of your own choices, you don’t end up playing the blame game.

Financial Tips

Click here to buy this book!

Any good financial plan starts with recognizing and understanding your current financial situation, then developing a livable budget.

Just like with everything else in life, you have to begin at the beginning to create a strong foundation for your financial future.

Plus, you can’t save anything for your future if you aren’t even making ends meet in the first place, now.

Financial Analyst

Once you have created a livable budget and started the savings habit, you can tap into the knowledge a good financial analyst offers.

In addition to asking friends for names of their financial planners, check into the background of anyone you consider taking money advice from – look for a registered rep for financial planning, or a certified financial planner.

Three years previous financial planning experience (in order to become certified.)

A certified financial planner must also pass a background check.

Agreed to follow a professional code of ethics.

The key thing to take away from this post is, don’t blindly trust your financial future to anyone. Make your own budget and money saving plan, check the credentials of anyone you ask for financial planning help, and make sure the plan you create will give you the future you want.

It’s scary to think of not having enough money at any age, but even scarier to think of being broke after you’ve retired and can’t work anymore – but some planning now can give you a brighter future. (Sorry for stating the obvious.)

Click here to buy this book!

You have choices here – you can hire a financial advisor, you can do research and apply your best common sense, you can flip a coin to choose your retirement savings strategy (but you shouldn’t actually do that) – you can leave it in God’s hands and see how it works out – or you can make a plan.

Financial Planning for Your Future

According to NAPFA, the National Association for Personal Financial Advisors (which can help you find a CFP, or Certified Financial Planner), two out of five people surveyed rated themselves poorly in regards to understanding personal finance.

This lack of financial understanding leads people to retire later, to be underwater with mortgages, to have ZERO DOLLARS saved for retirement, and to have no kind of budget whatsoever.

Ignoring the need for financial planning does not make the problem go away, however. It only serves for stress and depression to build up in the individuals who have foregone this type of monetary exploration.

Financial Management

Whether you have a lot of money or you are struggling to get by, financial management is going to play a big role in your future. If you take control now, your future will be better.

(I know I kind of said that already, in different words, but really, it is so vital it cannot be over-stressed.)

How to Save Money for Long Term Investment

If you feel like you don’t have enough money to get by, saving money is, of course, the farthest thing from your mind.

The thing is, things like saving and contributing to causes, instills in your subconscious mind that there will always be more, and then, you start to find more and more that you can save, and you start to feel better about yourself.

And, as Anthony Robbins said, “If you won’t save a dime out of a dollar, you won’t save a million dollars when you have ten million.”

Personal Finance

Click here to buy this book!

If you don’t know where to start on this life changing part of rewriting your life story, pick up a book on personal budgeting, or look for money management games you can play to explore the process of taking control of your financial destiny.

I hesitated to add a financial section to this website, because the site’s theme leans toward the transcendental, but then, how metaphysical and inspired can you be if fears over money problems are eating away at you?

Easy Ways to Get Out of Debt

Image courtesy of MorgueFile.

Exactly how hard or easy these debt escaping methods are is in the eye of the beholder – so – in my opinion – easy is the wrong word.

Effective – actionable – those are better fits – because some of these might feel pretty hard, but keep an open mind because they do work.

How Do We Get Out of Debt?

If you haven’t already done it, put together a budget that shows your income and living expenses.

If the troubling part of the debt is separate from your living expenses, like old medical bills or student loans, list it at the end, or on a separate page.

Compare your income to just the part of your expenses that you need to live – your mortgage, your car and insurance, utilities, food, that kind of thing.

Hopefully, there is something left of your income after you pay the basics.

If not, you are going to have to look for ways to either increase your income or cut expenses, until there is a surplus, if you want to get out of debt.

Consolidate Bills

One way to cut monthly payments is to take advantage of bill consolidation opportunities with your lenders. This is an especially common practice with student loans.

Money Problems

Hire a bankruptcy lawyer: If money problems are too severe and overwhelming, bankruptcy is an alternative for some people.

Ask creditors for a reduced settlement offer: A reduced payoff, or debt settlement, is offered in some cases of long-term unpaid debt.

Contact a credit counseling service to help you work out a budget you can live with and to arrange reduced payments.

Credit Building or Rebuilding

In my case, a lot of bad decisions had left me with damaged credit, so I had to make some lifestyle changes. I had to take on extra work, and I had to swallow my pride and get a cosigner to get a car loan.

It took me a little over two years, but I have paid off everything I had in collections and have never had a single late payment on my car payment.

I watched anxiously as my credit score slowly – and I do mean slowly – increased – over 140 points. (Yeah – it was pretty bad.)

I actually had a $20 claim against me, pulling my credit score down, and it was a bill I had paid but the creditor “forgot” to report it as paid. I thought I was going to have to give in and pay it a second time, but I filed a complaint, and the credit bureau checked it out, found in my favor, and removed it from my credit report – so – check your report first – for errors – because they do sometimes fix them!

The advantage of taking care of credit reporting errors and paying the smallest bills first is it lets you see improvement quickly. It’s motivating and makes you feel positive about the task of escaping a mountain of debt.

So, my advice for credit rebuilding is, get your credit report, and pick the smallest debt on it – and pay that first.

Then, make payments, and don’t miss any on your current loans and debts, and also stay focused on making payments on large past due debts, too.

We're glad you're here, and want to let you know that this site uses cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site , your continued use is considered acknowledgement of this information.Ok